NEA Expo in the San Diego Convention Centre

I recently attended the NEA Expo in San Diego, California, where my book, The Fiction Writer, was being showcased. It had just been showcased at Book Expo America in New York and was one of the first books to be available through Lightning’s Espresso Book Machine.

Over a hundred exhibitors participated in the NEA expo, attended by over 15,000 delegates from as far away as Georgia and New York. Highlights (for delegates, anyway) were the steel water bottle giveaway by Target, which generated snaking lines all the way to the Starbucks outside the Exhibit Hall and the NEA Expo tote bags, whose line up I unintentionally stumbled into and emerged with a blue bag. I must confess that my very own Fiction Writer pens became a hot item with teachers, eager to take notes with their new green pen that sported the Pixl Alien logo of the Alien Guidebook series.

During the three day drive from Vancouver to San Diego with friend, Margaret, we weathered 105 degree heat and Interstate 5 boredom through frequent Starbuck’s stops (for wireless, sustenance and to cool off), chowing down cool meals at Applebee’s (they are everywhere!) and bedding down at Motel 6s.

In San Diego, we treated ourselves to a stay in the luxurious Sofia Hotel, a Neo Gothic building and one of America’s Historic Hotels, where Margaret’s two teenage kids joined us to sightsee while I attended the Expo. Architect Wilber Peugh designed the downtown hotel and terminal in 1926 with a crenellated roofline and terra cotta and plaster embellishments. Formerly known as the Pickwick Hotel, the Sofia was part of the “Pickwick Stages”, one of the three major stage lines in the United States established by Charles Wesley Grise in 1911 as the “limited San Diego and Imperial Valley Stage.” It later merged with Greyhound in 1929. In 1986 the hotel was refurbished into a boutique-hotel by its new owners with the help of talented interior designer Anjun Razvi and became the Sofia Hotel. The Sofia Hotel was featured prominently in Dashiell Hammett’s popular mystery novel, The Maltese Falcon.

After a great sleep and breakfast in the hotel’s bistro, Toulouse and I wandered to the Convention Centre to attend the NEA Expo. Designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erikson, the San Diego Convention Centre was named one of the top ten convention centres in the world by a panel of respected international architects and covers about six football fields of exhibit space with a 40,000 square foot ballroom.

From angled rooflines to circular elevators, the theme of circle, tube and wave pervade the centre. Blue-green tinted glass and sea-colored carpets blend shape with color to celebrate the aesthetic power of the sea. Circles within triangles, triangles within circles in a symmetry of elegant geometric form. Rings of curving barrel-vaulted glass and Teflon-coated fiberglass “sails” reflect San Diego’s maritime history. Waterfront terraces overlook San Diego and provide expansive views of marinas and the bustling sea shore.

In an earlier post I talked about how our environment shaped how our minds worked, enhancing or detracting from our creativity and imagination. I mentioned the story of Jonas Salk, whose experience in Assisi convinced him that architecture and environment could promote creativity and imaginative thought (more on this on a later post).

While Toulouse looked for mischievous things to do at the NEA Expo, I talked to a lot of teachers from all over the States, gave some free writing consultations in my "outside office" and gave away bazillions of promotional copies of The Fiction Writer. The San Diego Convention Centre is located in the heart of downtown SD at the foot of its Victorian-era Gaslamp district, which boasts over fifty restaurants, cafes, bistros and bars (most of them along Fifth Avenue). Toulouse and I started there and worked our way up Fifth, restaurant by restaurant.

We started with Lou & Mickey’s, a charming upscale beach style restaurant, located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and the tram/railway facing the Convention Centre. We gorged on French fried Calamari and romaine lettuce served with Roquefort dressing followed by a main course of battered tilapia and French fries. This was all washed down with a roguish Duckhorn Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc from Napa Valley, kindly suggested to us by Heather, our knowledgeable waitress.

The next eatery we chose was La Fiesta, an authentic Mexican restaurant and bistro that served the best Margaritas this side of Palm Springs according to one of the NEA teachers. I ordered the “Purple Haze”, an exotic marriage of Margaritaville Silver Tequila, Chambord raspberry liqueur, Cointreau, and sweet & sour. (BTW, she was right). Margaret selected the “Mexican Seafood Platter”, sizzling hot in its own lava dish (pictured here) while I ordered the “Carnitas Uruapan”, tender chunks of pork slowly cooked in Mexico’s traditional style served with flour tortillas refried beans and rice and salsa fresco with cilantro and lime. Even the coffee was good here! The meal was awesome! Mind you, after a few Purple Hazes, I would have enjoyed anything.

San Diego is home to a diversity of engaging attractions for the sightseer. My companions and I caught several of these, including the San Diego Zoo and the Coronado Hotel (where the 1959 movie Some Like it Hot with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon and Marilyn Munroe was filmed).

I was eager to see the Salk Institute, a bio-medical research facility architecturally designed by Louis Kahn to encourage creativity among its members. Located in La Jolla, next to Scripps (and about 30 minutes from Downtown San Diego), the institute is a historic site worth seeing. Check out my next post on Jonas Salk’s vision and the significance of the institute’s architectural design.

Historic Hotels of America

The Sofia Hotel belongs to a group of heritage hotels established by the National Trust in 1989, which identifies quality hotels that have faithfully maintained their historic integrity, architecture and ambience. To be accepted into Historic Hotels of America, hotels must be located in a building that is at least 50 years old.


Photos:
1. The NEA Expo at the San Diego Convention Centre.
2. The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! showcased at the NEA Expo.
3. The back side of the convention centre, overlooking San Diego Bay.
4. Circular elevator servicing the front of the convention centre.
5. The Exhibit Hall beneath the sails
6. The vaulted “ceiling” of vines along an outside walkway of the convention centre.

7. Toulouse lounges next to my Acer netbook (which attracted as many teachers to my makeshift office as my book!)

8. My favorite shop on Fifth Avenue.

9. Mexican sea food platter at La Fiesta.

10. The Coronado Hotel.

11. The Salk Institute.

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I Love NY: The Spirit of New York & Andrée Putnam’s Design of the Morgan Hotel

New York is the Paris of America—Nina Munteanu

Toulouse and I began our New York experience with Manhattan and the Morgan Hotel. I’d booked us there for an incredible deal—rooms typically go for $600+/night (I won’t tell you what I got mine for! LOL!)

The Morgan Hotel is often described as the first boutique-hotel. Designed by Andrée Putnam in 1983, the hotel flaunts a retro-contemporary-modernism that truly defies definition. I was first struck by the lobby’s elegant “3-D” design carpet, and the Spartan somewhat oriental-style furniture and reception desk. Andrée Putnam’s avant-garde style provides travelers with a “retro-contemporary/faux-industrial” visual and tactile experience.

My room celebrated a harmony of minimalist luxury and comfort (the grey/black checked blanket and soft Paris sheets were a delicious treat) that extended to everything from metal clock and Ipod player at my bedside to the designer chair by Robert Mallet-Stevens and lamp by Felix Aublet and Mariano Fortuny. A black and white photograph of flower pistils hung on the wall. It was only when Toulouse discovered the bathroom—the most elaborate example of avant-garde artistic expression and practical utility—that I realized I’d entered Putnam’s world of French subversive design. I recognized the influence of Sainte Germaine de Pres (where she lived for some time) in its sophisticated and daring simplicity; something only Parisians seem to understand. Says Putnam, “To not dare is to have already lost. We should seek out ambitious, even unrealistic projects…because things only happen when we dream.”

While Putnam insisted that her renowned black and white checkerboard ceramic tile pattern of the bathroom was simply the fortuitous result of a tight budget, others have pondered on the irony of her legendary use of black and white as the unconscious revenge of the abandoned keyboard (she rejected her mother’s imposed choice for a career as a pianist, after many years of studying music.)

The Morgan Hotel lies in the heart of Manhattan, on Madison Avenue with a view of the Empire State Building and blocks away from New York icons like Saks Fifth Avenue, Grand Central Station, Times Square, Broadway and 42nd Street, Rockerfeller Centre, Radio City & Carnegie Hall, The United Nations, and Avenue of the Americas—where every agent and editor I ever wanted to meet conducts his or her business.

As I walked the streets I’d seen on TV and the movies since I was five, I realized that I’d parachuted into the very heart of America’s artistic centre. This was the literary capital of North America. Where Ray Bradbury came over sixty years ago to sell his first short story collection. Where countless writers and other artists made their important debut.

New York bustles with an intense mercurial energy. New Yorkers are a multi-cultural melting pot of genuine, forthright people on the move. You need to move to keep up. They bluntly let you know if you’re being stupid and lose patience with you if you lack the confidence and direction that they have come to accept as a given in this city of the self-made man and woman. But, if you earn their respect by demonstrating genuine motivation and intent, they will go to great lengths to help you. I loved their clean honesty and straightforwardness. You get what you see in New York. And what you see is pretty grand.

Toulouse and I entered the Empire State Building, whose tiered Egyptian-like Art Deco structure reminded me of Fritz Lang’s“Metropololis”. Towering 1,250 feet, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in North America when it was built in 1931 and is now again the tallest building in NYC. The spire at the top of the building was designed as a mooring mast for dirigibles (anyone remember the cool scene in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow?)

We wandered the streets, rather aimlessly—catching sites wherever we turned. Toulouse lured me into the Hard Rock Café located in the heart of Times Square. As I talked with the cool staff, Toulouse wandered off, as usual, looking for a free ride into the dining area with two girls who thought he was cute. I had to bribe the girls with a pin to get him back!

New York serves up like a delicious feast with too many desserts. There was so much to take in, I knew I would just have to come back another time. For all I did and saw in those few days I was there, I missed, among other things: the salute to Isreal parade on May 31st in Central Park; Prince Harry’s charity polo game on Governors Island; and President Obama’s visit (although, thanks to Toulouse, I did meet some of his security network!)

On that day we’d wandered over to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue to see the exhibit “Between Collaboration and Resistance: French Literary Life Under Nazi Occupation”. After taking some pictures outside the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, I entered to find a stately interior complete with art deco-style receptionist (with sculpted hair). At some point while attending the exhibit, I realized that Toulouse was not with me. I burst out of the building and collided into a mass of New York’s finest in blue, loitering by the library. They were serving as security for Obama’s cavalcade. A quick glance revealed that Toulouse was not where I’d left him. Why did I think he would be? I finally found him among the men and women in blue; he’d befriended Officer Montalvo, a smart cop with a penchant for small animals.

Yes, New York suited Toulouse.




Tribute to Andrée Putnam:


Andrée Putnam had been a student of aesthetics since childhood when she gutted her bedroom of everything but her bed. Putnam drew from her roots in Paris, melding French eccentric elegance with North American utility; she created architectural and interior designs that flowed with fluid precision. Her style was new and based on “discipline, harmony, fantasy, contrasts and surprise” according to Stéphane Gerschel in his book, “Putman Style”. Avant-garde in her day, her designs endure as a monument of elegant comfort, transcending ephemeral trends with timeless creative boldness. Besides The Morgan Hotel, examples of her designs include the Concorde, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, the Villa Turque, the Lagerfeld Gallery, Yves Saint Laurent boutiques, the Guggenheim Museum—just to name a few of her many accomplishments.

Designer Francois Russo said of Putnam, “I remember Andrée’s smile, like a sign telling you at each new meeting that anything is possible, that the moment was unique like a window opening onto a new kind of chemistry; a promise of happiness…She uncovers your forgotten memories, and makes you see what until that moment had been highly improbable.”

“To not dare is to have already lost. We should seek out ambitious, even unrealistic projects…because things only happen when we dream.”—Andrée Putnam

Photos by Nina Munteanu:

1. Lobby of the Morgan Hotel

2. Bathroom of the Morgan Hotel

3. Empire State Building

4. Times Square

5. Hard Rock Cafe, Times Square

6. Bryant Park and the Grill

7. Officer Montalvo & Toulouse

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I Love New York: BEA and Lightning’s Espresso Book Machine

I came to NYC recently to promote my new writing guidebook The Fiction Writer, at Book Expo America (BEA), North America’s largest book fair. The Fiction Writer was showcased along with other new books for 2009 at the BEA, which was held at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre, located in the heart of Manhattan with a view of the Hudson River.

The fair was huge and I was enthralled, if not slightly overwhelmed. I’ve been to several World Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions; but this trade fair was ... well… HUGER (is that a word?). Over 1,500 publishing houses, retailers, printers and associated industry people displayed exhibits at the book fair. Upcoming titles (like my own!) in all kinds of formats and genres were showcased. As I entered the Javits Centre, feeling like a character in one of my SF books, the floor buzzed with the frantic energy of industry representatives. I surfed a moving sea of forced smiles and sweaty hands clutching advanced reading copies and galleys of the latest summer and fall releases.

The fair kicked off with a one-day writer’s conference where my friend, super literary agent Donald Maass (author of The Career Novelist) gave a workshop.

The fair was jam-packed with great panels on publishing and writing given by CEOs, editors, publishers, marketing managers and designers. Some of them included Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and bestselling author of The Long Tail; Jared Friedman, co-founder and chief technology officer of Scribd; Nick Bilton, design integration editor of the New York Times and Mark Rotella, senior reviews editor of Publishers Weekly, among a list that read like the Who’s Who of the literary world (well, I was in New York!). A common thread ran through the talks and panels devoted to the “new wave” in internet marketing, POD publishing and online access to everything to do with publishing. Many compared the coming changes in the publishing industry with the recent (and unnecessary) devastation in the music industry as a result of changes in the music consumer-producer relationship. Panels addressed how—in the age of Google, YouTube, iPhones, Blackberries and social networks—publishers and authors can position themselves to successfully surf—rather than be swept under by—the Internet wave. Here are some choice things—if not totally new—that I gleaned from talks with titles like “Twitter for Dummies”, “Stupid Things Booksellers and Publishers Do”, “How Publishers Can Succeed Online Where Others Failed” and “Wired and Receptive: Reaching Boomer Book Buyers Online”:

• “Books” are going to change to accommodate the multiplex crowd of new portable-wearable technology, and readily dispensable and disposable entertainment. This will include what books look like, how they “behave”, and how they are accessed and purchased (see my reference below to Lightning’s new Espresso Machine). Publishers are actively looking for ways to accommodate our youth’s—not to mention our own—new love affair with the cell phone-iphone-netbook


• Authors need to promote themselves by connecting with their audience in a genuine way. Readers want to know YOU. Get out there on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. Do cheesy YouTube videos of you doing anything. Start a blog. LOL! (read my guidebook on blogging).

I met my publisher at Starfire at the BEA and she took me aside to catch Lightning Source’s debut of its “Espresso Machine” (how did she know I really needed a coffee?). She found me eagerly devouring the last of a quiche from Grazies at the food court downstairs. I was a culinary island of focus amidst the agile whispering of people closing deals over rubens and cheap beer. I’m familiar with this ironically clandestine activity in a wide open social setting, though in the places I’ve seen it—and taken part in—it’s usually been in a bar.

“Come on!” my publisher urged me. “I have something to show you.”

When we got there, I realized that the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) didn’t make coffee. It’s actually the fastest and most agile book-to-market distribution channel, according to Lightning Source staff, who smugly demonstrated their miniature printing machine/computer to an excited audience. The EBM, which was named by TIME Magazine in 2007 the "Invention of the Year," is essentially an ATM for books. It automatically prints, binds, and trims perfect bound paperback books on-demand, at point of sale. I saw the thing in action and thought it was slick. So, it didn’t give me coffee; it gave me the next best thing—a printed book in four minutes! The Fiction Writer will be one of the first titles offered by the Espresso Machine, which will eventually be found in major retail bookstores and libraries throughout North America and abroad. Besides Starfire, other participating publishers currently include John Wiley & Sons, Hachette Book Group, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, Clements Publishing, Cosimo, E-Reads, Bibliolife, Information Age Publishing, Macmillan, University of California Press, and W.W. Norton. The list is getting bigger as I speak.

Back in April Publishers Weekly reported five Espresso machines in the U.S. (with 10 others in locations throughout Canada and the U.K.). Dane Neller, CEO of On Demand, said that "within a relatively short period that number will be increasing dramatically.” In April, the first Espresso Book Machine was installed at the InfoShop at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., which loaded 200 of its titles online for the three-month test period. Two additional Espressos will be installed at the New York Public Library and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in Egypt, in September.
If you have a chance to see one, go check it out and surf the wave.

The wave of the future.

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Mildred Huie Wilcox—Portrait of an Artist As a Georgian Lady

I’ve got Georgia on my mind… That isn’t just a line in a song. It’s a lingering sentiment that haunts anyone who has spent any time there, I think. When I attended the Scribblers’ Retreat Writers’ Conference on Saint Simon’s Island in Georgia a few weeks ago, I was treated to its renowned homespun hospitality and had the fortune to meet one of Saint Simon’s Island’s most venerated citizens: Mildred Huie Wilcox, Community Arts Advocate, Humanitarian, and International Art Scholar.

Mildred opened The Left Bank Art Gallery on Saint Simons in 1964 and later the Mildred Huie Museum at Mediterranean House. A former international model and fashion designer (she modeled in Rome, Paris and New York), this elegant and very classy lady showcases an eclectic collection of European and local art in her gallery; art guaranteed to delight your senses and promote enchanting stories from the gallery owner herself (every painting has a story). She also writes a monthly art column in the local paper, Coastal Illustrated, has written several books on Georgian history, and frequently speaks to art and writers groups.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Mildred spotted me as I made a clumsy late entrance at the conference and waved me on to join her table, where participants were already engaged in feasting. As I took my seat next to her, I found myself entranced with her Georgian gentility flavored with the international patina of the well-travelled dilettante. As I surmised from her vibrant elegance, Mildred was not only full of stories—she was a story herself.

Mildred invited me to her elegant home, situated at the end of a winding road lined in white oleander and beneath an archway of live oaks. Her place was an old plantation house on La Ferme Sainte Simone, and whose walls were lined with original art from as far away as Russia and Paris. She treated me to a glass of champagne and delightful stories of her days in Paris, Rome and New York. She’d known the artists Picasso and Cocteau during her modeling days. “It sounds glamorous,” she said in her lilting alto Georgian accent, “but not when you work in a place from 8am to 1pm and then 3pm to 7pm.” About meeting these famous artists, who, she informed me, kept their paintings in the trunk of their car (because the paintings weren’t insured), Mildred said almost pithily, “When you’re that old (in her middle-twenties) you’re not that impressed with others—more with yourself!” Then she laughed and looked suddenly like the young energetic girl who’d played touch football with the locals in Rome.

After some sleuthing at one of the bars on the island, I learned that “The Red Barn” was one of the hot spots to eat, so Toulouse and I invited Mildred there for supper and a lively interro—er … discussion. As we entered the place, Mildred requested the staff to seat us at her usual table. As we made our way to our seats, she introduced me to several of the Barn’s patrons. Once we took our seats, she turned to me rather conspiratorially and informed me that they “sang the menu” to their astonished customers. They did! And in key.

Mildred fed me wonderful stories about her modeling days over an exquisite meal of broiled spotted sea trout, wilted salad (a Georgian specialty) and baked potatoes. She still recalls her first gig in Rome. Just like in the movies, she’d had to suddenly replace a head model who’d taken ill. The first outfit she presented was a forest green chiffon strapless evening gown; she wore a live parrot chained on her arm. And she was scared of parrots!

As the evening continued, I sipped my Ferrari Carano (2006) Merlot with growing rapture. It is a soft, velvety wine with rich concentrated fruit and supple tannins. Described as a rich complex wine with a chocolate silky finish that is beautifully balanced, it sent me into a dreamy stupor that had me cursing my illegible notes after. Luckily for me, Mildred seemed to sense my less than admirable ability as a journalist and paused several times for me to scrawl my impressions (Toulouse was useless—he was busy eyeing the desert at the table next to us; besides, he’s worse at spelling than I am).

Born in Albany, Georgia (also the home of Ray Charles) Mildred went to college in Bristol, Virginia, then attended the University of Georgia (UGA) where she majored in English Literature. She served as a bank teller for a while before embarking on her varied international career of art and design.

I most enjoyed her tales of France in her capacity as an art dealer and artist's representative. She shared a story about her visit to one of her artists (Leon Gambier). Mildred didn’t know French that well and Gambier didn’t speak English. “So we relied on body language,” and got along just fine, according to Mildred. Gambier’s wife wore a hat during the whole sitting at mealtime. “She was a real club lady,” quipped Mildred with a playful smile. We talked well into the night and I stopped writing somewhere between my first and third glass of wine, entranced by Mildred’s enchanting stories of impressionistic art, international design, Paris fashion and Georgian history.

Mildred confided in me that one of her favorite art periods and styles is Fauvism, after the Impressionists. Her Left Bank Gallery holds a Salon D’Automne Exhibition each October, dedicated to this group and style. “At the 1905 Salon D’Automne in Paris,” says Mildred, “a group of painters under the leadership of Henri Matisse shocked the art world with their paintings characterized by brilliant color, expressive brushwork, and flat composition. The art critic Louis Vauxcelles, on visiting the show, called the painters the ‘Wild Beasts’ or ‘Les Fauves’; the pejorative remark was exploited by hostile critics, and the name stuck.”

When I return to Saint Simon's Island this August, I will visit the Left Bank Gallery again and continue where we'd left off.

Images:

Mildred Huie Wilcox and me at the Left Bank Art Gallery

Near the Sea Palms Resort (location of Scribblers) on Saint Simon's Island

Saint Simon's Island

Pierre Auguste Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette

Pecheurs au chalut by Leon Gambier

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Darwin and Lincoln: Revolution to Evolution

Two hundred years ago, on February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born within hours of each other in opposite worlds: Darwin in a comfortable home in the English countryside of Shrewsbury; and Lincoln in a log cabin in the Kentucky woods.

Their shared birthday is more than intriguing coincidence; it marks their shared legacy in shaping the modern world. A legacy that is far more intermingled than one might first think. It both starts and ends with one word: evolution.

The common belief in 1809 was that life was fixed in place since the beginning of a terrestrial time that went back a few thousand years at most. The “truth” held in 1809 lay in a “vertical” organization of life, a kind of established hierarchy of species on earth, descending from humans downward with a divine judge above. Focusing on the example of the terror in France, people also believed that societies generally required inherited order and a strong immutable structure to keep them from dissolving into anarchy or tyranny. The notion of democracy was a fringe ideal held by a handful of radicals. In America, where “democracy” was embraced through the revolution, the persistence of slavery tainted its ideal with ill notions of prejudice and fixed social order. Yet, the tide of change and evolution was stirring in the hearts and minds of these two men of humility and grace.

Robert McHenry of the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog, says: “Lincoln’s humility is to be read in almost his every utterance and writing. No one of such humble beginnings could be other than painfully conscious of the great distance he traveled with none of the usual requirements of birth, breeding, education, or fortune. He stands as Exhibit Number One in the argument for democracy, a great man whom no one could possibly have suspected of being one until he was one. With Darwin the case is different. He had the advantages that Lincoln lacked, and yet he did not, as so many so often do, take that fact as evidence of his superiority. He undertook arduous work in the interest of learning, and he submitted his findings and his theorizing to an often hostile world for examination.”

Both men believed in the honorable spirit of and equality of humanity. Both men freed humanity from the shackles of certain attitudes borne of fear and ignorance. Lincoln embodied the spirit of racial progress and emancipation. In their book Darwin’s Sacred Cause Adrian Desmond and James Moore concluded that Darwin’s interest in evolution could be traced to his hatred of slavery. Darwin “was disheartened to see advocates of slavery justifying their position by saying that white European humans and black African humans were not the same species,” writes author Thomas Hayden in one of a series of articles in the February 2009 issue of the Smithsonian devoted to these two men. “One of the animating thoughts in the young Darwin’s mind as he set out to understand the world was his conviction that all humans were one.”

Both men challenged established mores. Each forged a new rhetoric and evolving paradigm of thought and action. “They shared logic as a form of eloquence, argument as a style of virtue, close reasoning as a form of uplift,” writes New Yorker author Adam Gopnik in the February 2009 issue of the Smithsonion. Lincoln “managed, somewhere along the way, to turn himself into one of the best prose writers America has produced. Lincoln united the North behind him with an eloquence so timeless that his words remain fresh no matter how many times you read them,” writes Malcolm Jones of Newsweek (July 2008). Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (wherein he assured that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth") remains one of the most quoted and is considered one of the greatest speeches in American history. With his first 29 words, Lincoln accomplished what he had come to Gettysburg to do—he defined the purpose of the war for the Union: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." In 272 words, he defined the national principle so thoroughly that today no one would think of arguing otherwise, writes Jones.

Today, Darwin’s Origin of Species “ranks among the most important books ever published, and perhaps alone among scientific works, it remains scientifically relevant 150 years after its debut,” writes Hayden.

Darwin “started out as an amateur naturalist,” writes Jones. He was “… a 22-year-old rich-kid dilettante who, after flirting with the idea of being first a physician and then a preacher, was allowed to ship out with the Beagle as someone who might supply good conversation at the captain's table.” Darwin returned “in the grip of an idea so subversive that he would keep it under wraps for another two decades,” says Jones. “ Darwin may have been independently wealthy, but in terms of his vocation, he was a self-made man.”

“Lincoln was self-made in the more conventional sense,” Jones continues. “A walking, talking embodiment of the frontier myth made good. Like Darwin, Lincoln was not a quick study. Both men worked slowly to master a subject. But both had restless, hungry minds. After about a year of schooling as a boy—and that spread out in dribs and drabs of three months here and four months there—Lincoln taught himself. He mastered trigonometry (for work as a surveyor), he read Blackstone on his own to become a lawyer. He memorized swaths of the Bible and Shakespeare. At the age of 40, after he had already served a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, he undertook Euclidean geometry as a mental exercise.”

Capping his eloquent tribute to these two men, McHenry ends his blog article with this thought: “Is it too trite, in this so sophisticated age of doubt and irony, to note simply that each man did the work he found himself called to, and did it with unequalled grace? Can we set aside the suspicion that we, most of us, are not up to their example and instead rejoice that they were of our species?”

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